Sunil Sethi:The triumph of individual will

AL FRESCO

Three medals at the Olympics and the country is convulsed with jubilation, even though India’s position (till Friday) is puny compared to the US (95 medals), China (83 medals), or Russia (51 medals). But if one thinks of the situation as a glass half full rather than half empty what is remarkable is that the laurels have been won with hopelessly inadequate or negligible state support. They have done it more or less on their own — or in the traditional Indian way of being pushed and propped up by family, friends, well-wishers and small town communities.

Sports journalist colleagues returning from the akhada where Bronze winner Sushil Kumar trained in Delhi describe living and training conditions of shocking neglect — wrestlers crammed into dingy holes with rats and cockroaches for company, unsanitary and dingy places where no aspirant can dream of a gym, dietician or “mind coach” (as fitness psychologists are called). Even more remarkably, and unlike the boxers of Bhiwani, Sushil does not come from a family of akhada trainers. His father is a driver, his brother a slim man of regular build. Sushil’s triumph is all the greater for winning against all odds. No one had even properly heard of the wrestling federation’s effort, rather its lack of it, till Sushil Kumar’s victory. His medal is to be most valued for being cast by individual will.

At least the boys from “Little Cuba” — Vijender and Akhil Kumar — had a support network of family and friends, in fact an entire community to fall back on in Bhiwani. It is still not clear how, why and when Bhiwani fell in love with boxing but it is a sport that has been pursued with passion and commitment. Vijender’s brothers and uncles trained as boxers and the tradition has relentlessly been pursued and upheld by several families in the small town in Haryana.

In fact, the entire community rallied round would-be Olympians to obtain some funding from the Lakshmi Mittal trust to help train their boys. Sports historians may in time provide us with the conclusive links between Bhiwani and boxing but there is material here for a social anthropologist to delve into a nondescript town’s quiet obsession with producing world-class boxers. It must require reserves of collective ambition, perseverance and self-belief for a community to seek, and find, its place in the sun. Once just another market town in the dustbowl of north India, infamous for breeding Haryana’s Aya Ram-Gaya Ram brand of politicians, Bhiwani’s reputation is now burnished forever.

Against such a backdrop it would be easy to argue that the shy, ironic 26-year-old Abhinav Bindra’s glittering prize is in part the result of wealth and privilege — how many parents can provide their adored only son an air-conditioned shooting range of Olympic standards at home and concentrate their energies on building an international champion from their personal resources? Here, the tribute goes to that sometimes-maligned social unit, the Indian family, that quite literally stuck to its guns. For more than a decade, Bindra’s parents provided all that they could to sustain him through a series of national and international championships, including the Sydney and Athens Olympics, before he finally struck gold. It is a touching story of a family staking their all and a home-grown champ returning their effort with gold.

Great grumblings have erupted in some quarters about the cash prizes being heaped upon the winners by public and private enterprises, even bankrupt state governments who can’t afford teachers’ salaries. It is justified, when you regard the facilities offered by the Sports Authority’s training institute in Patiala — woefully below Olympic standards — and not anything that remotely resembles state-of-the-art preparation for champions. After his spectacular win, Abhinav Bindra said: “But India has no Olympics programme.”

His pithy epigraph hits the nail on the head. India’s Olympics medals are thanks to the pains of individuals, families and communities. The state had little or no part to play.